1901 Connecticut League

Bristol creaked out a charged run in a wild pennant race filled with hot and cold streaks. One reason for all these ups and downs could be a home winning percentage of as much as 60 percent. This, in turn, is usually an indication of bad umpiring, or umpiring done in such fashion as to give the home teams the benefit of the doubt.

Remember, it won't show on these graphs, but each league is getting stronger each year. Note the stability of franchises here as compared with 1898. As the stakes edged up incrementally, the ferocity of the players and pressure on umpires both increased. A championship team could make a bundle selling some of its players to the big leagues. The fifteen dollar a week umpire for a minor league was becoming a thing of the past.

Jerry Denny (still playing) managed the Derby team and their collapse to last place had 11 wins and 47 losses after being over .500 in July.